The previous record holder, Jesse Lucas Berg, was from Chicago. Stephens-Whale beat his 2007 time by 7.6 seconds.

So train up, people, and train up hard. Columbia Center is a 69-flight monster and you don’t want to end up like seattlepi.com reporter Casey McNerthney did last year, on his first attempted conquest of Seattle’s tallest building:

My goal at the start of Sunday’s race up the Columbia Center was to climb all 1,311 stairs faster than the average time of 15 minutes. My goal at the halfway point: finish without barfing.

Sunday’s annual event set another record: More than 6,000 runners took part, raising more than $1 million for research.